James Nicoll Reviews

On April 25, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl. Until now, all of the books published in English focused on the facts, names, and data. Voices from Chernobyl presents first-hand accounts of what happened to the people of Belarus and the fear, anger, and uncertainty that they lived through. In order to give a voice to their experiences, Svetlana Alexievich – a journalist by trade – interviewed hundreds of people who had been affected by the meltdown. From innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster, Voices from Chernobyl is a crucial document of what happened and how people reacted to it. Alexievich presents these interviews in monologue form, giving readers a harrowing inside view into the minds of the affected people untempered by government spin, accusations, or judgements, leaving the reader with just the life-shattering pain of living through such an event and its aftermath. 

Mirah Bolender follows The Monstrous Citadel with Fortress of Magi — the pulse-pounding conclusion to her debut fantasy trilogy in which a bomb squad defuses the magic weapons of a long forgotten warThe Hive Mind has done the impossible — left its island prison. It’s a matter of time before Amicae falls, and Laura Kramer has very few resources left to prevent it.The council has tied her hands, and the gangs want her dead. Her only real choice is to walk away and leave the city to its fate

In a political fantasy unlike any other, debut author C. L. Clark spins an epic tale of rebellion, espionage, and military might on the far outreaches of a crumbling desert empire.
Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.

Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne. 

Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale. 

Award-winning author Aliette de Bodard returns with Fireheart Tiger, a powerful romantic fantasy that reads like The Goblin Emperor meets Howl’s Moving Castle in a pre-colonial Vietnamese-esque world 

Fire burns bright and has a long memory….

Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she’s returned to her mother’s imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria’s royal palace. 

Thanh’s new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh’s home. Eldris won’t take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions. 

Can Thanh find the freedom to shape her country’s fate — and her own? 

Wine-Dark Deep Book Two — Encounter at Jupiter 

Continue the Epic Voyage of the Spaceship Ulysses and its Crew! 

Having narrowly escaped the rebellion on Ceres, the spaceship Ulysses prepares for its historic rendezvous with Jupiter until an unknown object emerges in their wake. 

Silent and mysterious, the thing gives chase.
Is it a life form? A machine? Or something even more sinister? 

Plummeting towards the largest planet in the solar system, Cal Scott and the crew of the Ulysses must hurry to discover whether the thing is friend or foe as they battle to avoid becoming the greatest space disaster of all time. 

The struggle with the incomprehensible plays out over interplanetary distances and fantastic speeds and begs the question-
What else is out there? 

To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history.…Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to ​“My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of‑a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history. 

The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known-and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself-to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed-and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? 

The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler’s dark reign-and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions-and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad’s ancient powers-one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. 

Elizabeth Kostova’s debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful-and utterly unforgettable. 

A novel of haunting beauty and ominous suspense, The Second History is a post-apocalyptic love story about a young couple embarking on a journey to understand, for the first time, what they’ve been hiding from all their lives. Born in a barren, altered future world, Eban has lived in hiding all his life without ever understanding why. After his mother’s death, he retreated into the northern Appalachians with Judy, the only other woman he has ever known. But as the years passed and Judy suffered multiple miscarriages, she began to wonder what happened to the cities their parents fled, where a strange sickness is said to have spread among those who stayed behind. To stop the headstrong woman he loves from leaving the safety of the hills to travel to the cities, Eban convinces Judy instead to set out on a journey to the fabled colony of the original mountain settlers, where he promises her they’ll find the answers she seeks. Now expecting a child once again, Judy and Eban begin their climb deep into the mountains. Along the way, the people they encounter and the secrets they uncover will threaten their lives and the ties between them, further complicating what they know of the world beyond the mountains and of each other. Set in a far-flung time and place that begin to feel increasingly familiar, The Second History explores the devastating effects of environmental catastrophe on human relationships. It is a story about the limits of our ability to know each other or understand the past … and about the courage it takes to invent the world again for those we love. 

“The Candide of our #@$\*%?! age.”— Ken Liu, award-winning author

Catherynne M. Valente, the bestselling and award-winning creator of Space Opera and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland returns with The Past is Red, the enchanting, dark, funny, angry story of a girl who made two terrible mistakes: she told the truth and she dared to love the world.The future is blue. Endless blue…except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown.Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she’s the only one who knows it. She’s the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it’s full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time.But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected.